Green-shirts depart for Oman today

KARACHI: The 21-member Pakistan hockey team will depart for Oman on Monday (today) morning to participate in a double-league three-nation tournament. The other teams are hosts Oman and Japan.

The Green-shirts will play their first match against Oman on February 14. Pakistan’s manager-cum-head coach Olympian Hasan Sardar has said that this tour is their first assignment. “Let’s see how our players demonstrate their skills in this event and show how much they have learnt during the training camp under the present team management.

“Because of the recent back-to-back defeats, the morale of the team was down and their confidence was shaken. We did not train and coach them under any pressure. We did polish their skills, told them what mistakes they did in the past matches, and these mistakes will not be repeated.

“Most of the members of the team are experienced and a number of them have played throughout the season. Some were part of the national team in the recent past, some are coming from professional hockey leagues, some participated in the national championship.

Thus, there is no issue of form and fitness. They are all in full rhythm,” said Sardar. He said that in Oman, Japan would be the main rivals. “We have analysed them through videos of past three matches in which they defeated us twice and held to draw once. Penalty corner is their main weapon and we have worked out how not to concede PCs.

“We are taking two goalkeepers, Imran Butt and Amjad Ali, and we will try both according to the requirement,” said the head coach. He said that Mubashir Ali would be the main executer of penalty corners as he was the top scorer in the national championship and showed good form during the camp training. Abubakar is the other option for drag flicking on PCs, he added.

“We will play attacking hockey, while also keeping in mind the importance of defence against the Japanese. “The centre half position is always important as he is the schemer and feeds the ball to forwards. Fareed Ahmed and Tausiq Arshad have been trained for this purpose, while Arsalan Qadir will be our main centre forward,” he added.

Squad: Rizwan Senior (Captain), Arsalan Qadir (Vice captain), Mubashir Ali, Muhammad Rizwan Junior, Tasawwar Abbas, Abubakar Mehmood, Fareed Ahmed, Touseeq Arshad, Umer Bhutta, Shafqat Rasool, Amjad Ali, Faisal Qadir, Ammad Butt, Azfar Yaqoob, Aijaz Ahmed, Ali Shan, Atiq Arshad Shajeeh, Tanzeem-ul Hassan, Atif Mushtaq, Imran Butt and Amjad Ali.